1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, and particularly to an image processing apparatus in which, based on digital image data of an image recorded on a recording medium, digital image data of an image to be recorded on a recording material is prepared.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there has been known image reading technique in which light is irradiated on an image recorded on a photographic film and a reading sensor such as a CCD receives the light transmitted through the image to thereby allow photoelectric reading of the image.
In such image reading technique, for example, when only a partial image region of an image is read (when so-called cropping of an image for cropping is effected), generally, only light transmitted through the partial image region is received by a reading sensor by using a dedicated carrier or mask.
However, one carrier or mask is used to only allow cropping of an image to one fixed size. For this reason, when cropping of an image to a plurality of sizes is effected, a dedicated carrier or mask is required for each size, and therefore, it is necessary to provide a plurality of carriers or masks.
As a result, the number of parts of an apparatus for reading an image increases, and therefore, the cost of the apparatus increases.
Further, exchange of a carrier or mask is required each time the size of an image for cropping is varied. For this reason, an operator's operation at the time of cropping becomes very complicated and a great deal of labor is thereby imposed on the operator.